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South Carolina six-week abortion ban heads to governor’s desk for approval

May 24, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(COLUMBIA, S.C.) — South Carolina’s state Senate has passed a six-week abortion ban, sending the bill to the governor’s desk where it is expected to be signed into law.

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster signed a previous so-called “heartbeat ban” into law in 2021, but it was struck down by the state’s Supreme Court in January.

Fifteen states have ceased nearly all abortion services since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, ending federal protections for abortion rights.

The new ban prohibits all abortions after fetal cardiac activity is detected, which generally occurs at six weeks of pregnancy, with limited exceptions, according to the ban.

Abortions are permitted to prevent the death of the pregnant woman, to prevent the serious risk of a substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function, in cases of rape and incest and if the fetus has a fatal anomaly, according to the ban. The exception does not include psychological and emotional conditions.

Conditions listed under the exception include molar pregnancy, partial molar pregnancy, blighted ovum, ectopic pregnancy, severe preeclampsia, HELLP syndrome, abruptio placentae, severe physical maternal trauma, uterine rupture, intrauterine fetal demise and miscarriage, according to the bill.

Anyone who violates the ban is guilty of a felony and, upon conviction, must be fined $10,000, face prison time of up to two years or both. Physicians or medical providers found guilty of performing illegal abortions will also have their licenses revoked.

Planned Parenthood said, along with its partners, that it is prepared to challenge the ban in court.

“Abortion is already difficult to access in South Carolina, with only three abortion clinics in the state and a range of limitations on access imposed by state lawmakers. South Carolina ranks 43rd — in the bottom 10 of all states — with the highest maternal mortality rates. Women here are three times more likely to die during pregnancy or childbirth than the average U.S. woman,” Planned Parenthood said in a statement.

‘Sister senators’ fight against ban

A group of five women senators, the only five in the legislative body, has fought against the bill. The group, who’ve adopted the term “sister senators,” told ABC News that a short holiday week near the end of the legislation session would be the time the men would “shove it down our throats.”

Even before the vote they had a sense that a back-room deal had been made to get it through. After three attempts, the senators’ filibuster failed to block the bill from passing.

“Women are 51% of the South Carolina population [but hold] only 14% of the General Assembly and even less than that in the Senate. What I believe is that women are going to show up at the ballot box,” state Sen. Sandy Senn said.

The group of women are very different — three Republicans, one Democrat and one independent — but they are all religious mothers who are certain this bill passing in the state Senate would be bad for women in the state. None of them viewed themselves as women’s rights advocates or feminists and they all said they were “pro-life.”

“We all believe in life. We believe in life for the woman as well as a life for the child,” state Sen. Margie Bright-Matthews told ABC News.

They needed two men to cross over to vote with them on Tuesday to block the ban, but one of their previous allies had gone dark, which they knew wasn’t a good sign.

Abortion options for women in the Deep South are now closing fast, with Florida’s six-week ban awaiting a court ruling soon and North Carolina’s 12-week ban taking effect.

What is in the ban?

Women will be required to have to in-person doctors appointments before they can receive an abortion.

Under the ban, pregnant women cannot be criminally prosecuted or face civil liability for violations of the ban.

If the fetus is alive in utero, physicians are required to make reasonable efforts to preserve the life of the unborn child, provided that does not pose a risk to the health of the pregnant women, according to the bill. Entities that violate this will be fined up to $50,000, according to the bill.

Physicians who perform abortions under the health exceptions have to rationalize why they believe the woman qualifies for the exception in her medical records, according to the bill.

Abortions performed under the rape and incest exceptions must report it to the sheriff in the county in which the abortion was performed within 24 hours. Physicians must tell the patient they will report the rape before the abortion is performed.

Physicians are also required to maintain a copy of the patient’s records for seven years after an abortion is performed under the exception. Failing to do so would be a felony with up to two years of imprisonment and a $10,000 fine on the physician, according to the bill.

Pregnant women upon whom an abortion is performed in violation of the law can seek actual and punitive damages against the violator.

Typhoon Mawar bringing destructive winds and ‘life-threatening’ storm surge to Guam

May 24, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — The strongest tropical cyclone to impact Guam in decades is bringing “life-threatening” conditions to the U.S. island territory.

Typhoon Mawar’s eyewall “clipped” the northern portion of Guam early Thursday local time, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The storm is bringing “destructive winds, a life-threatening storm surge and torrential rain” to the island, NOAA said.

Maximum wave heights of more than 40 feet were recorded near Guam amid the storm. The highest winds recorded on Guam were 105 mph before the anemometer broke.

The center of the typhoon passed about 15 miles to the north of Guam Wednesday evening local time. At that time Mawar’s maximum sustained winds were near 140 mph, equivalent to a Category 4 hurricane.

As the storm slowly moves away from Guam, the weather is expected to gradually improve on the island.

Most of Guam was without power by Wednesday afternoon, with the island’s energy grid providing electricity to only 1,000 of its approximately 52,000 customers due to Mawar’s “severe adverse conditions,” according to the Guam Power Authority.

“We were able to avoid a complete island-wide blackout when the system severed into two grids,” the agency said in a statement. “We are working hard to maintain the last remaining customers through the storm which contributes to quicker recovery after the winds die down later tonight or in the early morning hours.”

An earlier forecast projected Mawar to hit the island as a super typhoon packing winds as strong as 160 mph — equivalent to a Category 5 hurricane.

The National Weather Service has issued typhoon, extreme wind and flash flood warnings for Guam, which is the westernmost territory of the United States, located in Micronesia in the western Pacific Ocean.

Rainfall from Mawar could accumulate to as much as 20 inches on Guam, while the storm surge is forecast to reach as high as 25 feet. The typhoon was already producing waves up to 45 feet in the ocean near the island on Tuesday.

“Several inches of rain have already fallen,” the NWS said in a bulletin on Wednesday. “Flash flooding is ongoing. Considerable flash flooding is likely, even for locations that do not normally flood.”

Guam’s Office of Civil Defense advised residents on Tuesday to seek shelter immediately, as Mawar is “expected to make a direct hit or very near passage for Guam.”

“There is a potential of a catastrophic and devastating event for Guam,” the office said in a bulletin.

Guam Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero also urged residents to take cover on Tuesday, as “damaging winds” were expected to start soon.

“Please take all the necessary precautions in an abundance of safety before we feel the full strength of the super typhoon,” Guerrero said in a social media post.

President Joe Biden has declared an emergency in Guam due to Mawar and ordered federal assistance to support the response to the typhoon.

Mawar is one of the strongest typhoons to impact Guam since the 1960s — the start of the satellite era.

The most destructive typhoon to hit Guam was Karen in 1962, with 155 mph winds and wind gusts of at least 170 mph, according to NOAA. Most homes on the island were destroyed.

More recently, in 2002, Super Typhoon Pongsona moved near the island with 144 mph winds and gusts up to 173 mph, causing $700 million in damage at the time, according to NOAA.

ABC News’ Ahmad Hemingway contributed to this report.

Alex Murdaugh indicted on federal fraud charges

May 24, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(CHARLESTON, S.C.) — A grand jury has indicted convicted murderer Alex Murdaugh, the disgraced South Carolina attorney, on federal fraud charges, prosecutors announced Wednesday.

Murdaugh, 54, is currently serving life in prison after being convicted of murdering his wife and their youngest son.

The federal grand jury returned a 22-count indictment against Murdaugh for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud; bank fraud; wire fraud; and money laundering, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of South Carolina said.

The indictment alleges that Murdaugh “engaged in three different schemes to obtain money and property from his personal injury clients” between 2005 and 2021 while working as a personal injury attorney at his Hampton law firm.

The alleged schemes involved routing clients’ settlement funds to his own accounts as well as a fake account under the name “Forge,” as well as conspiring with a banker to commit wire fraud and bank fraud. The banker, Russell Laffitte, was convicted on six federal charges in connection with the scheme in November 2022, prosecutors said.

The indictment further alleges that Murdaugh conspired with another personal injury attorney to defraud the estate of his former housekeeper, Gloria Satterfield, who died after a fall at Murdaugh’s home in February 2018, and funnel nearly $3.5 million into his “fake Forge” account “for his own personal enrichment,” prosecutors said.

“Trust in our legal system begins with trust in its lawyers,” U.S. Attorney Adair F. Boroughs said in a statement. “South Carolinians turn to lawyers when they are at their most vulnerable, and in our state, those who abuse the public’s trust and enrich themselves by fraud, theft, and self-dealing will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

Murdaugh’s attorneys said in a statement that he is cooperating with federal prosecutors.

“We anticipate that the charges brought today will be quickly resolved without a trial,” his attorneys, Dick Harpootlian and Jim Griffin, said in a statement to ABC News.

Murdaugh resigned from his firm, Peters, Murdaugh, Parker, Eltzroth, & Detrick, in September 2021. The firm has also sued him for allegedly funneling stolen money from clients and the law firm into a fake bank account for years.

Murdaugh also faces about 100 other state charges for allegations ranging from money laundering to staging his own death so his surviving son could cash in on his $10 million life insurance policy to misappropriating settlement funds in the death of his housekeeper.

Murdaugh was found guilty in March of fatally shooting his wife and younger son at the family’s property in June 2021.

The jury reached the verdict after deliberating for nearly three hours following five weeks of testimony from more than 70 witnesses — including Murdaugh himself, who denied the murders but admitted to lying to investigators and cheating his clients.

During the high-profile trial, state prosecutors argued that years of lies and theft were about to catch up to Murdaugh and the murders were a way to divert attention.

Murdaugh’s attorneys are seeking to appeal his conviction in the double murder case.

ABC News’ Eva Pilgrim contributed to this report.

Chief Justice John Roberts defends Supreme Court’s ‘highest standards of conduct,’ offers no new rules

May 24, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — In his first televised public remarks since the pandemic, Chief Justice John Roberts defended the integrity of the Supreme Court in the face of slumping public approval and growing political pressure after a recent barrage of misconduct allegations.

“I want to assure people that I am committed to making certain that we as a Court adhere to the highest standards of conduct,” Roberts said Tuesday at the American Law Institute gala in Washington, D.C.

The gala, at which the chief justice was awarded the Henry J. Friendly Medal for contributions to the law, marked the first time Roberts directly addressed growing concern about how the justices handle potential conflicts of interest with their personal lives, a topic that has gotten renewed attention amid a series of alleged ethical infringements by Justice Clarence Thomas.

“We are continuing to look at things we can do to give practical effect to that commitment,” Roberts said, “and I am confident there are ways to do that, that are consistent with our status as an independent branch of government under the constitutions, separation of powers.”

Roberts did not indicate what additional steps the Court could take to shore up public confidence or when it might act.

A series of reports exposed Thomas’ undisclosed personal and financial ties to billionaire GOP mega-donor Harlan Crow. Thomas, who has denied wrongdoing, did not report gifts of luxury travel, real estate transactions and private tuition payments for a grandnephew on financial disclosure reports, according to ProPublica — steps many legal experts say are required under federal ethics guidelines.

The revelations have renewed calls by Democrats to impose a binding ethics code on the justices with independent oversight, among other reforms aimed at boosting transparency. Republicans have branded the campaign for judicial reforms as a partisan attack on the court’s credibility over dissatisfaction with recent decisions.

All nine current justices have signaled opposition to the Democratic proposals, recently signing a public memo explaining their ethics standards and how they are practiced.

“The justices … consult a wide variety of authorities to address specific ethical issues,” the members of the high court said in a document titled “Statement on Ethics Principles and Practices.”

During an earlier wave of public concerns about ethics at the high court in 2012, Roberts had the justices would study whether to formally adopt a code of conduct of its own but so far declined to do so.

The court has suffered declining favorability in recent months. A new poll by Marquette University Law School — the first since the Justice Thomas allegations were reported by ProPublica last month — finds 41% of Americans approve of the way the Supreme Court is doing its job, while 59% disapprove.

A narrow majority, 51%, of the public now thinks justices base their rulings mainly on their personal political opinions instead of on the law, and well fewer than half, 39%, think Supreme Court rulings are based mainly on the law — a seven-point drop in this measure of confidence in the court, according to an ABC New/Washington Post poll published earlier this month.

In his speech Tuesday, Roberts suggested he has been troubled by the changing relationship between the public and the judiciary, lamenting protests against judges on law school campuses and growing threats of violence that resulted in U.S. Marshal protection outside their homes 24/7.

“The hardest decision I had to make was whether to erect fences and barricades around the Supreme Court,” Roberts said, referencing fallout from the decision last spring to overrule Roe v. Wade.

“I had no choice but to go ahead and do it. But while it was going on while the fences were going up, I kept hearing [then Chief justice] Charles Evans Hughes’s remarks at the opening of the Supreme Court building: He said, ‘the Republic endures, and this is the symbol of its faith.'”

Despite the partisan concerns swirling about the high court, Roberts insisted the six conservative and three liberal justices maintain “collegial relations,” as is the historic norm. Ahead of his Tuesday night remarks, Roberts was introduced by Justice Elena Kagan, a liberal serving alongside him.

Kagan, appointed by former President Barack Obama, lavished Roberts with praise as a statesman and professional, and she suggested he deserves more public credit for his service than he has received.

“He is a consummate legal craftsman. He writes intelligibly and powerfully about the most difficult issues of the law. He produces work of great insight and analytic strength and penetration and eloquence,” Kagan said.

McCarthy sends GOP negotiators to White House eight days before potential default

May 24, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — After three weeks of negotiations and eight days from a possible default, as of Wednesday there was still no breakthrough in talks to avert a potential financial catastrophe as soon as June 1.

Shortly before noon, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy told reporters he was sending his House Republican bargaining team to the White House “to try to finish out negotiations.”

Earlier, as McCarthy made his way into the Capitol, ABC News Senior Congressional Correspondent Rachel Scott asked him where things stand.

“I still feel they’re productive — the talks,” he said, but there were no signs of a deal.

In fact, McCarthy said he has not spoken to President Joe Biden since Monday.

Both sides appear to be waiting for the other to blink.

“I’m hopeful that they come back that they realize what the American public is telling them as well, that you cannot have the highest percentage of debt and spend the most amount of money while you’re getting the most amount of revenue in, that you got to change that behavior, just like you would do in any household,” McCarthy said. “And I’m hopeful as they come, if they come back today that they realize that.”

As the standoff over federal spending continued, the White House has offered to freeze spending while Republicans are demanding deep cuts, according to a source familiar with the discussions.

“Well, the point you have to make, here we are eight days away. Why are we here? The Democrats do not want to come off their spending addiction,” McCarthy said.

Asked how much in federal spending Republicans want to cut, he said, “Well, that’s part of negotiation. Democrats don’t even want to spend less, they want to spend more, that’s unreasonable,” he said.

He again made it clear increasing tax revenue is not on the table.

“Find ways to eliminate the waste. And that’s what we’ve been doing. That’s why on February 1, I sat with the president. That’s exactly what I said to him. We can’t raise taxes, and what’s he talking about now? We need to raise more because I want to spend more after you’ve already done that, you set all the records you want to set, once the Democrats took the majority, this is what they brought us. And in doing so they brought us inflation, hurting every family,” he said.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Wednesday tripled down on her warnings that June 1 might be the day the U.S. could default on its debt, even, she said, if it’s “hard to be precise” about what happens around that date.

Yellen, speaking at a Wall Street Journal forum, was reluctant to discuss a “day-after” scenario in the wake of a U.S. default but allowed that Treasury would have to be ready to prioritize some bills over others.

She said payment prioritization is “not operationally feasible” — emphasizing how unprecedented a default would be.

ABC News’ Justin Gomez and Chris Boccia contributed to this report.

Rapper Fetty Wap sentenced to six years in prison for drug trafficking

May 24, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Rapper Fetty Wap was sentenced Wednesday to six years in prison for his role in a drug trafficking conspiracy that blanketed parts of Long Island and New Jersey in cocaine, heroin, fentanyl and crack.

Prosecutors said the 31-year-old hip-hop star, whose real name is Willie Junior Maxwell II, was a kilogram-level redistributor for the trafficking organization.

The drugs were obtained from the West Coast and brought to the East Coast either through the mail or by drivers with hidden vehicle compartments to transport the drugs to Suffolk County, New York, where they were stored, prosecutors said.

The drugs were then distributed to dealers, who sold them on Long Island and in New Jersey, according to prosecutors.

The rapper pleaded guilty in August in a New York federal court to conspiracy to distribute and possess controlled substances.

Maxwell was arrested on Oct. 28, 2021, during the Rolling Loud Music Festival in Queens, New York, on charges stemming from the drug trafficking conspiracy. He was charged with five others, including a New Jersey corrections officer, in the case.

The former corrections officer, Anthony Cyntje, was sentenced in March to 72 months for his role in the conspiracy. The remaining four defendants have pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing.

Poet Amanda Gorman criticizes book ban effort in Florida targeting Biden’s inauguration poem

May 24, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — After news broke that Amanda Gorman’s historic poem “The Hill We Climb” was moved to the middle school section of a Miami-Dade school, the poet slammed efforts to restrict or censor books in schools.

“I’m gutted,” she said in a statement posted to her social media accounts.

She continued, “I wrote The Hill We Climb so that all young people could see themselves in a historical moment … Robbing children of the chance to find their voices in literature is a violation of their right to free thought and free speech.”

Documents obtained via a public records request by the activist group Florida Freedom to Read Project found that a complaint by one parent targeted several books concerning Black history — including “The Hill We Climb,” “The ABCs of Black History,” and “Love to Langston.” The School Materials Review Committee recommended these three books be shelved in the middle school section of the media center.

The complaint said the poem “indirectly” contained “hate messages” and believed it could “cause confusion and indoctrinate students.” “Critical race theory” and “indoctrination” were cited as reasons behind the complaints of the other books.

Two books on Cuba were also targeted by the parent, who cited “indoctrination about socialism” in their complaint.

In a statement, Miami-Dade County said Gorman’s poem was not banned or removed from their schools, assuring that the book remains available in the media center as part of the middle grades collection.

The Miami Herald first reported the story.

In 2022, the American Library Association documented a record-breaking number of reported book ban attempts across the country. The organization found 1,269 demands to censor or restrict library materials or resources, the highest total since it began compiling this data more than 20 years ago. More than 2,571 unique titles were targeted, with the majority of the books being written by or about LGBTQ characters or people of color.

Penguin Random House, one of the country’s largest book publishers which also published Gorman’s poem, is part of a lawsuit targeting a separate Florida school district for removing certain books from the shelves of public school libraries.

The lawsuit argues that the school board’s removal and restriction of books that discuss racism and have LGBTQ themes violates the First Amendment.

Florida has been at the center of the clashes in education, as recent legislation has led to restrictions and removals of books across the state.

Ron DeSantis’ presidential bid tests whether he’ll be Trump’s biggest 2024 challenge so far

May 24, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — Ron DeSantis is expected to enter the 2024 Republican presidential primary race on Wednesday — setting the stage for a long awaited and potentially volatile contest between the Florida governor, who is a rising star in his party, and former President Donald Trump, who has so far dominated most polls in the very early months of the election.

A recent ABC News/Washington Post survey showed that among the six best-known candidates, Trump clinched 51% of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents while DeSantis garnered 25%. A majority of those voters said they’d be satisfied with either Trump (75%) or DeSantis (64%) as their presidential nominee.

Those margins are far ahead of other declared candidates, like South Carolinians Nikki Haley and Tim Scott, though still well behind Trump, a former DeSantis ally who grew more critical as DeSantis’ own national ambitions became clearer.

The governor will announce his candidacy during a live, audio-only Twitter Spaces event with Elon Musk at 6 p.m. ET on Wednesday, sources have told ABC News. He is also set to file with the Federal Election Commission this week.

Wednesday’s announcement will mark the climax of months of anticipation about the governor’s plans to seek higher office. He has made trips this year to several key early-voting states, including multiple stops in Iowa and New Hampshire, but ultimately waited until the completion of the Florida legislative session to formally enter the presidential race.

Gearing up to run, DeSantis has argued that it’s time for Republicans to move beyond Trump.

“Two [people] have a chance to get elected president: [Joe] Biden and me, based on all the data in the swing states, which is not great for the former president and probably insurmountable because people aren’t going to change their view of him,” he told donors last week, sources have said.

During the legislative session, DeSantis burnished his conservative bona fides while continuing to stoke the controversial culture war issues that have increasingly been his signature. He signed bills restricting abortion after six weeks, defunding diversity programs at state universities and permitting concealed carry of a firearm without a government-issued permit.

He also targeted Disney’s long-standing self-governing status in Florida after the company opposed the state’s Parental Rights in Education Act forbidding discussion of sexual orientation and gender in some K-12 classrooms, a ban critics called “Don’t Say Gay.”

DeSantis and Disney — which is ABC News’ parent company — have since become embroiled in a legal battle, with DeSantis arguing Disney is trying to “to have their own fiefdom” and Disney accusing DeSantis and other Florida officials of being “patently retaliatory, patently anti-business, and patently unconstitutional.”

Over the past week, the governor has touted his record in front of audiences made up of the kinds of voters who often swing Republican primaries.

In Orlando on Saturday, while delivering a speech at a gala hosted by the Florida Family Policy Council, an anti-abortion group, DeSantis promised “a war on the woke,” vowed to lock up people who “take away or cut off someone’s private parts” — referring to gender confirmation procedures — and railed against critical race theory, parts of which many conservatives argue are being inappropriately taught in K-12 grades.

“We need to restore sanity to our society, we need to restore normalcy to our communities and we need to restore integrity to our institutions,” DeSantis said, to cheers.

A former Navy lawyer-turned-lawmaker, DeSantis first emerged on the national stage during the COVID-19 pandemic when he bucked public health guidance on masks and vaccines, contending that some restrictions could be excessive and unnecessary.

He has seemingly relished angering Democrats and hitting back at the mainstream press — a task also carried out online by his staff, who are prone to post on Twitter their correspondence with reporters while calling out what they see as unfair coverage.

DeSantis was born in Jacksonville and spent his childhood in the Tampa suburb of Dunedin. He graduated from Yale University, having played on the baseball team, and Harvard Law School before joining the Navy in 2004.

He first held office in 2013, as a representative for Florida’s 6th Congressional District, serving until 2018.

That year, he won the Republican nomination for governor — after an endorsement from Trump — and narrowly defeated Democrat Andrew Gillum in the general election.

Since DeSantis became governor, Florida, long seen as a purple state, has shifted markedly in favor of Republicans.

He links those conservative victories to his style of leadership, a response to even those critics in his own party — including Trump, who labeled him with a characteristically insulting nickname: “DeSanctimonious.”

“You can call me whatever you want just as long as you also call me a winner, because that’s what we’ve been able to do in Florida is put a lot of points on the board and really take this state to the next level,” DeSantis said earlier this year.

In November, he won reelection by nearly 20%, the largest margin by a Republican governor in Florida’s history.

He and his wife, Casey, whom he married in 2009, have three children together.

Killer whales learn ‘coordinated’ attacks on sailboats, some observers say

May 24, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Orcas may be teaching each other to attack boats following a spate of strikes on sailboats off the coast of Europe, some observers say.

Sailors have reported a series of “coordinated” attacks by a group of orcas, including a May 22 strike on a 26-foot vessel sailing off the coast of Cape Spartel, near the Strait of Gibraltar.

“[Six] orcas arrived, 2 adults very big, 4 smaller ones,” sailor JP Derunes wrote in Orca Attack Reports, a Facebook group dedicated to flagging orca activity. “Both rudders destroyed and blocked … Boat to be hauled off later this week.”

That attack followed a nighttime strike on May 4, when a Swiss yacht named Champagne, which was also sailing through the Strait of Gibraltar, was attacked by three orcas. They struck its rudder, eventually sinking it, reported Yacht, a German boating news outlet.

At least 15 human-orca incidents were recorded in 2020, the year in which the aggressive encounters are believed to have begun, according to a study published in the journal Marine Mammal Science. Many of those attacks included orcas biting or striking the rudders of sailboats.

No casualties appear to have been reported in the attacks.

Scientists said spikes in aggression may have been started by a female orca whom scientists have named “White Gladis.”

White Gladis is believed to have suffered a “critical moment of agony” such as a boat collision, which inflicted trauma on the orca, triggering a behavioral switch that other killer whales have learned to imitate.

The majority of orca-sailor encounters have been harmless.

“In more than 500 interaction events recorded since 2020 there are three sunken ships. We estimate that killer whales only touch one ship our of every hundred that sail through a location,” Alfredo López Fernandez, a biologist at the University of Aviero, told Live Science.

According to a study in Biological Conservation, a peer-reviewed journal, “sophisticated learning abilities” have been found to exist in orcas, with imitation found to be particularly significant.

Woman shares yearslong experience with PCOS to spotlight the impact on South Asian women

May 24, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — A woman is sharing her experience with polycystic ovary syndrome, or PCOS, to put a spotlight on a community at greater risk of the condition: women of South Asian descent.

Varsha Singh of Pennsylvania told ABC News’ Good Morning America that she struggled with symptoms for over a decade before being diagnosed with PCOS in her mid-20s.

“My hair was shedding more over time, and coupled with having an irregular period, I knew something was off,” Singh said, adding, “I was not given any kind of support that I wish I had.”

The condition Singh, 31, was ultimately diagnosed with, PCOS, is a female hormone imbalance in which the ovaries produce excessive amounts of testosterone and, in some cases, form small ovarian cysts, according to the U.S. Office on Women’s Health.

Symptoms of PCOS can include everything from irregular or absent periods to excessive facial hair, acne and obesity. The exact cause of PCOS is not known.

The condition affects 1 in 10 women of childbearing age, according to the Office on Women’s Health.

People of South Asian descent are at even higher risk for PCOS, multiple studies show.

One study, based in the United Kingdom, estimated nearly 50% of South Asians had polycystic ovaries (PCO), which is one criteria of PCOS.

Another study published in 2021 found that the prevalence of PCOS in South Asian women was 3.3%, compared to 1% for Chinese women and 1.5% for Filipina women.

“People who are of South Asian descent tend to present with symptoms at a younger age and have more severe hirsutism, or that high level of male hormone in the body,” Dr. Fatima Daoud Yilmaz, a New York-based, board-certified OB-GYN, told GMA, adding that there is a need for more research and visibility on people of South Asian descent with PCOS.

“We shouldn’t be comparing everyone to a default of a Caucasian person, but rather comparing you to people who have a similar origin that you do,” Daoud Yilmaz said.

A diagnosis of PCOS requires two of three criteria: Irregular ovulation, which is usually indicated by an irregular menstrual cycle or a lack of a cycle; increased androgen levels; and multiple small cysts on the ovaries.

After she was diagnosed, Singh started chronicling her journey with PCOS online, in the hopes that she might help other people.

She said for her, lifestyle changes including diet and exercise made a difference in treating the condition.

“I had more time to learn how to work out the right way for me and how to meal prep and cook healthy foods,” Singh said. “Within three months, my body was showing improvements.”

She continued, “I’m doing yoga and meditating. Now it’s a lifestyle practice for me.”

Other treatment options to manage PCOS symptoms include hormonal birth control and anti-androgen medicines as well as weight loss, according to the Office on Women’s Health.

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